ligations--there must be!--that we can't get away from. I can't help
feeling that we ought to stand by our mistakes, and by our bargains; we
made a choice--it's cheating, somehow, and if we take this--what we
want--we shall be punished for it."

"But I'm willing to be punished, to suffer, as I told you. If you loved
me--"

"Hugh!" she exclaimed, and I was silent. "You don't understand," she went
on, a little breathlessly, "what I mean by punishment is deterioration.
Do you remember once, long ago, when you came to me before I was married,
I said we'd both run after false gods, and that we couldn't do without
them? Well, and now this has come; it seems so wonderful to me, coming
again like that after we had passed it by, after we thought it had gone
forever; it's opened up visions for me that I never hoped to see again.
It ought to restore us, dear--that's what I'm trying to say--to redeem
us, to make us capable of being what we were meant to be. If it doesn't
do that, if it isn't doing so, it's the most horrible of travesties, of
mockeries. If we gain life only to have it turn into death--slow death;
if we go to pieces again, utterly. For now there's hope. The more I
think, the more clearly I see that we can't take any step without
responsibilities. If we take this, you'll have me, and I'll have you. And
if we don't save each other--"

"But we will," I said.

"Ah," she exclaimed, "if we could start new, without any past. I married
Ham with my eyes open."

"You couldn't know that he would become--well, as flagrant as he is. You
didn't really know what he was then."

"There's no reason why I shouldn't have anticipated it. I can't claim
that I was deceived, that I thought my marriage was made in heaven. I
entered into a contract, and Ham has kept his part of it fairly well. He
hasn't interfered with my freedom. That isn't putting it on a high plane,
but there is an obligation involved. You yourself, in your law practice,
are always insisting upon the sacredness of contract as the very basis of
our civilization."

Here indeed would have been a home thrust, had I been vulnerable at the
time. So intent was I on overcoming her objections, that I resorted
unwittingly to the modern argument I had more than once declared in court
to be anathema-the argument of the new reform in reference to the common
law and the constitution.

"A contract, no matter how seriously entered into at the time it was
made, that later is seen